We are happy to share the news that Korea Peace Appeal received a special award at the 24th Hankyoreh Unification Culture Awards!

We consider this award to be a reminder of the seriousness of the situation on the Korean Peninsula, which has only gotten worse in recent years, and to work harder to turn the ceasefire into peace. We will continue to work hard to become a campaign that strives for peace :)


August 16, 2022 Hankyoreh Unification Culture Awards Ceremony  Ⓒ Hankyoreh Unsik Yoon

Hankyoreh Reunification Culture Special Award Acceptance Speech

We are thrilled to announce that Korea Peace Appeal has been awarded a special prize at the Hankyoreh Unification Culture Award, a truly prestigious honor for those working for peace. 

The Korea Peace Appeal Campaign has a seemingly impossible goal: to end the Korean War through the power of citizens. In 2020, 70 years after the outbreak of the Korean War, civil society organizations launched the campaign with one mind: 'It's time for us to end the war, no longer leaving it to the government alone'.

For more than 70 years, the Korean Peninsula has been under one of the longest ceasefires in the world. This means that most people living on the peninsula have lived their entire lives with the threat of war. The Korean War, which never fully ended, left the peninsula deeply unsettled. Amidst the unstable ceasefire, there was also a nuclear risk. The Cold War structure that never ended on the Korean Peninsula has again become one of the causes of the escalating blocization and military confrontations in Northeast Asia. Resources and budgets that are barely enough to save lives and the planet are being used to prepare for a war that could break out again at any moment. How long do we have to live in this vicious cycle of hostility and arms races?

When you think of how much has changed since the Korean War, 70 years seems like a long time ago, and yet the world is strangely quiet. There's no global outcry for an end to this age-old war, which is perhaps partly our fault as people living on the Korean Peninsula.

So we launched the Korea Peace Appeal Campaign and signature movement. We started it because there is no more reason not to end this war. After all, stopping hostilities and ending the war is the most fundamental solution to creating a peaceful, nuclear-weapon-free Korean Peninsula, and if the voices of people around the world calling for an end to the Korean War are echoed and connected from here to there, there would not be a more powerful impetus for peace than that.

Throughout the campaign, we've met so many people through the Korea Peace Appeal signature movement: people who stopped in their tracks on the streets and left their names, one letter at a time; people who supported the campaign online and spread the word; people who took a photo of peace during the COVID-19 pandemic and sent it to us; people who sent petitions and letters of support by international mail from across the seas, all who made it possible for us to get to this point.

Korea Peace Appeal consists of seven major Korean religious orders, more than 370 domestic civil society organizations, and more than 70 international partners. Although not everyone could be here, representatives from the seven major religions served as honorary representatives, 25 representatives from various religious and civil society networks served as co-representatives, and activists from various civil society organizations served as executive committee members. The Campaign has tried to be an amplifier, a network of networks so that the voices of those who want peace on the Korean Peninsula can be heard louder and more excitedly.

I think this award is meant to remind us of the seriousness of the situation on the Korean Peninsula, which has only gotten worse in recent years and to encourage civil society to work harder as one voice to turn the ceasefire into peace. I feel that there is more work to be done than what we have done so far. Next year, 2023, will be the 70th anniversary of the signing of the armistice. I think it's time for civil society to come together and make a difference, with a sense of urgency that we don't want to go past 70 years, and I couldn't ask for more support and encouragement along the way.

If you want peace, you must prepare for peace. In order to live up to the name of the Hankyoreh Unification Culture Award, we will do our best to prepare for peace in the future. Thank you very much.


August 16, 2022 Hankyoreh Unification Culture Awards Ceremony  Ⓒ Hankyoreh Unsik Yoon

▶ For the Korean version see here

 
🕊 Signature Campaign to End the Korean War
Sign the Korea Peace Appeal Now 👉🏻 endthekoreanwar.net